BURIED ON THE BATTLEFIELD: NOT MY BOY

Name: BURIED ON THE BATTLEFIELD: NOT MY BOY
Author: William L. Beigel
ISBN: 978-1-73361-250-0

THE RETURN OF THE DEAD FROM WORLD WAR TWO

by William L. Beigel ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2019

A moving tribute to fallen soldiers and their survivors.

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Beigel tells the story of the American government’s efforts to bring home the country’s World War II dead in this nonfiction debut.

Of all the nations that participated in World War II, only the United States repatriated its war dead. This is now commonplace, but at the time, it was an unprecedented logistical feat, intended to bring closure to the families of those who lost their lives in overseas conflicts: “In many cases, the recovery and return of the remains happened five years or more after their deaths,” writes Beigel in a preface, adding that “The time, effort, and national treasure spent to repatriate the war dead of the United States…is utterly unique in the annals of global history.” Beigel is a professional researcher who’s investigated the deaths and burials of over 2,000 American service members on behalf of their relatives, and in this book, he tells the largely unknown story of how the “Return of the World War II Dead Program” came about. He includes excerpts from the letters of grief-stricken mothers and contemporary newspaper reports that show the growing public demand for bringing the soldiers’ bodies home. In the book’s second half, Beigel goes into the stories of individual soldiers, describing how they were killed, the feelings of their families, and the struggles of military officials to deliver on their promises. Beigel’s prose is clean and concise throughout. His tone is often quite sentimental, but he still manages to tell soldiers’ stories with poise: “He was buried on the twelfth of July in a very small cemetery located on the road from St. Croce, Camerina, northwest one-half mile. Sergeant Drullinger was laid to rest between two of his fellow soldiers from F Company, both, by chance, small-town Oklahomans.” The words of the parents themselves are even more affecting; for example, here’s the father of Sgt. David Wilson, who feared that the Army hadn’t kept track of his son: “We realize that he was just a common G.I. and rated very low with the army. But he was very dear to us and our only son, so you can see how we would appreciate some detailed information.” Overall, the book provides a clear window into an operation that most Americans will likely know little about. Readers will also be left with a great feeling of respect for the importance of ritual when dealing with the deceased. One particularly difficult situation involved Maj. Frederick Koebig and 1st Lt. Anthony Kuhn, two bomber crewmen who survived the crash of their plane only to be captured by the Japanese in the South Pacific. They were killed when their prison camp was unintentionally bombed during an Allied raid, then cremated by the Japanese and placed in a box along with the ashes of 27 other American and Australian prisoners. Nevertheless, the U.S. military found a way to bring them home in a manner that was respectful to all the men with whom they were interred.

A moving tribute to fallen soldiers and their survivors.

Pub Date: May 16, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-73361-250-0

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Midnight to 1 Am

Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

FROM LBJ'S GUNS AND BUTTER TO REAGAN'S VOODOO ECONOMICS

by Hobart Rowen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1994

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Strong language and strong medicine about the decline of the American economy, but marred by overwrought prose and Monday- morning quarterbacking. Rowen, a columnist for the Washington Post, attributes America's economic decline not to unfair trading practices by Japan or other external factors. It is, he says, a case of ``self- strangulation.'' Rowen examines the men and women who have made economic policy since the Johnson administration. Without attributing any venality (other than perhaps the playing of partisan politics) and admitting that people did the best they could, he nonetheless does assign blame for the low economic state to which the nation has sunk. Emerging from WW II as the only country with an industrial base untouched by war, the US was the most powerful nation on earth. Then, from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, it went from the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor. Rowen ignores JFK, whom he knew personally and who arguably set in motion events leading to the problems Rowen cites. The current crisis, he argues, was initiated by Johnson's Vietnam adventure, which crippled the Great Society and set up a virulent inflationary cycle in its attempt to have both guns and butter. The blunders of LBJ gave way to Nixon's disastrous wage- and price- control attempts, and the abandonment of the gold standard. Ford and Carter were hamstrung by OPEC and were, according to the author, nothing short of inept. By far his harshest criticism is leveled at Reagan's ``voodoo economics,'' with its vain hope that wealth would trickle down from the top. Rowen also attacks Congress, describing it as spineless. For the future, he says, Americans will have to adjust to the economic rise of Asia, focus on high-tech industries, and become less greedy. Rowen's case is compelling, if not totally convincing. He also gives readers a poignant mini-memoir about the life of a newspaperman covering the powerful.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-8129-1864-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Times/Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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CHRISTINA STEAD

A BIOGRAPHY

by Hazel Rowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1994

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An absorbing biography that will help Stead's fans place her fiction in the context of her life and may well attract new readers to her work. Christina Stead (190283), who was born and died in Australia (about which, writes Rowley, she was ``both nostalgic and patronising''), did her writing during her years in Europe and the US. Although she tapped real events and people for her fiction—and not just for her autobiographical novels, including the superb The Man Who Loved Children—she could be secretive in her private papers, identifying people by fictional names, writing in code, and ultimately destroying many documents. Despite this obstacle, Rowley (an Australian academic, currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University) offers a coherent and convincing portrait that reaches back into a youth in which Stead was overshadowed by her father, who first instilled in her a lifelong socialist orientation, insecurity about her appearance (he dubbed her ``Pig Face''), and a yearning to be adored by a man. When she arrived in London in 1928, Stead found just the man—William Blake (originally Blech), whom Rowley succinctly describes as a ``Marxist investments manager who seemed to know something about everything.'' Blake hired her to be his secretary, and Stead accompanied him to Paris, where their romance flourished—despite a wife who would not divorce Blake for 23 years. When the bank employing Blake collapsed, the pair fled to New York. Stead's writings earned only modest royalties even when favorably reviewed, and Blake could not find work, so they returned to Europe in a consistently difficult hunt for economic security that gave their lives a nomadic flavor. By 1949, Stead said to a friend, ``I have been a writer, quite unsuccessfully for twenty years,'' although a revival of interest in her work, which began in the mid-1960s, helped her return to Australia in 1969 as a famous author and ``Official Personage.'' A welcome study of an underrated author. (16 pages of photos, not seen)